Tim Flannery still on base with music

The Giants third base coach (and former Padre) plays ball and talks music

Baseball has inspired a number of classic songs. Some of the best include John Fogerty’s “Centerfield,” Bruce Springsteen’s “Glory Days,” Bob Dylan and Jacques Levy’s Catfish Hunter-inspired “Catfish,”
The Treniers’ “Say Hey (The Willie Mays Song),”
Steve Goodman’s “A Dying Cub Fan’s Last Request” and, of course, Jack Norworth’s “Take Me Out to the Ballgame.” Just as good, if lesser known, are San Diego troubadour Steve Poltz’s “Brief History of My Life,” former San Diegan Eddie Vedder’s Cubs-inspired
“Someday We’ll Go All the Way”
and The Byrds’ “America’s Great National Pastime” (co-written by onetime North Park resident Kim Fowley).

But
Tim Flannery’s
new “21 Days” is the first baseball song by a third base coach for a Major League Baseball team, let alone one about an uphill playoff run to a triumphant World Series.

“Most of my songs are baseball songs,” said Flannery, 55, a former San Diego Padres infielder and third base coach. Since 2007, he has been the third base coach for the San Francisco Giants, who won the World Series this year and in 2010.

A longtime North County resident, Flannery has 12 solo albums to his credit. He performs Saturday at the new
Java Joe’s in Ocean Beach
with his band, featuring North County multi-instrumental wiz Dennis Caplinger, Randi Driscoll and Shawn Rohlf. Local favorites Berkley Hart open the show and longtime Flannery pal Steve Poltz will guest.

Flannery's "Java Joe's" gig will include “21 Days,” which chronicles the Giants’ recent come-from-behind playoff series victory against the Cincinnati Reds and St. Louis Cardinals for the National League pennant. (The Giants went on to win the World Series, sweeping the Detroit Tigers in four games.)

“On Oct. 9, we were two games down — 21 days later we were in a parade in San Francisco, with a new world championship,” ” Flannery said. “ ‘21 Days’ is a ‘back-against-the-wall’ song.”

Make that a “back-against-the-wall” song also inspired by a fire-and-brimstone pep talk delivered to the Giants by team manager Bruce Bochy, who previously spent 12 seasons as the manager of the Padres.

“We were two games (down) in the playoffs and someone on the team was flipping out,” Flannery recalled, chuckling. “They asked Bochy: ‘What are our odds?’ And Bochy replied: ‘I don’t need to be told it’s impossible, or almost impossible.’ Then he said: ‘Ask Flan if it’s impossible — he was on the ’84 Padres, which won three (games) in a row (in the National League playoffs against the Chicago Cubs).

“Then, (Bochy) pulled out Gideon’s (Bible), the Old Testament, and he worked these guys (on the Giants) into a frenzy!”

Flannery describes “21 Days” as “sounding like an Irish fight song that should be sung in a pub.” Its lyrics sum up the final three weeks of the Giants’ victorious 2012 season, with such couplets as:

Odds like these cannot be beaten / So, beat the drum and sound the trumpet / Gideon heard the master’s calls / Odds like these cannot be beaten / Unless your back’s against the wall / Then I heard a band of brothers singing / Destiny’s our call / History will be changed tonight / With our back against the walls.